Rested and alert

Yesterday, I attended a work-sponsored webinar on restful sleep and discovered a few strategies to combat poor quality sleep. For example, if your mind is racing and have difficulty falling asleep, try to write down your thoughts as a way of unloading your brain. The speaker raved about camping pillows and how it could be comfortable as an alternative to regular pillows. Other things discussed during the talk, like avoiding caffeine at least 4 hours before going to bed (or ideally after 12 noon) and not looking at screens half an hour before going to sleep, seem like common advice even though majority of us don't always apply these habits. 

I've recently tried my best to avoid caffeine and electronics before bed and can attest to having a better disposition the following day. I've written about sleep before, but I cannot rave enough about the benefits of having a good night's sleep. It sets me up for success the following day. And by success, I mean fully functional, motivated, no drastic mid-day sluggishness, more understanding, less irritable, happy; wherein coffee is consumed for pleasure as opposed to serving as a fuel source. 

Sometime between my last post and today, there was a high pressure work-related situation. To make light of things, I mentioned something along the lines of 'alright, this is achievable--I just need caffeine on IV.' Of course, I was kidding. I thought that my colleagues would just brush it off as a trivial joke. I have received one complimentary coffee thus far. And this free coffee wasn't even a coffee-and-a-sit-down-work-chat type of thing. It was literally grab-a-mobile-order at the coffee shop in the lobby, followed by a discussion while walking towards the elevators, the clinics, then bye bye. That's how work looks like with these highly functional folks. For context, this is one of many groups I work with in an interprofessional setting. I can obviously get my own coffee, but it's a nice symbolic gesture of mutual professional respect.

Going back to the topic of sleep. The webinar mentioned coffee naps that are maximized during the mid-afternoon slump at around 1-3pm. That is, you drink your coffee then take about a 20-minute nap so that when the caffeine kicks in you are both rested and alert. There seems to be science behind it, so that might be something we can look into and practice.

If you want to reduce your stress (or help you fall asleep), you may opt to listen to the album embedded below. A study on the first track (the first 4 minutes) by Shepherd et al., 2022 [link] concluded that '...overall “Weightless” was not as effective as the monaural 6-Hz beats in reducing physiological arousal...it can be argued that “Weightless” has potential utility as a relaxant in systematic desensitization techniques, and as a general relaxant as stress-reducing intervention in its own right.'